Pizza at Roberta’s in Brooklyn

Ask ten New Yorkers where to find the best pizza and you’re likely to receive ten different responses. New York is a serious pizza town, and opinions, like the styles of the pizzas themselves, vary. It might surprise some, then, that one of my very favorite pizza places isn’t focused only on pizza, and may not come to mind as quickly as Joe’s, or John’s of Bleeker Street, or Co., or Motorino (all of which are certainly part of the ‘very good New York City pizza’ club!). It’s true that Roberta’s excels at many things, and one of those happens to be turning out exceptional Neapolitan-inspired pies from their wood-burning oven.

Located in the once solely industrial neighborhood of Bushwick Brooklyn, Roberta’s minimal curb appeal belies the wonder of the experience within. An entire complex is tucked away behind its graffitied cinder block walls and the adjoining corrugated metal fencing, including the aforementioned pizza oven, several dining rooms, a bakery, a take-out window, a garden, an army-style tent to accommodate diners waiting for a table, a radio station, and a very serious high-end sister restaurant with two Michelin stars serving a set tasting menu at its chef’s counter. Though the restaurant is perpetually-buzzing, we lucked into a free table as soon we arrived one recent weekend, benefiting from the cold weather that must have been keeping many people home. Roberta’s doesn’t do much to dispel its reputation as a one of Brooklyn’s original hipster hangouts, but the staff are friendly and welcoming to children, and high chairs are available.

In the main dining room worn wooden picnic-style tables line the poured concrete floor. Once settled we perused the menu, and I remembered what I love so much about the restaurant – pretty much everything (no, seriously, everything!). The menu, filled with casual food prepared with precision and serious attention to ingredients, makes it very hard not to over order. Most of the pizzas employ topping combinations that skew toward the creative end of the spectrum, but classics like the Rosso and Margherita are always available. For our family of two adults, a nearly 4-year-old, and an 11-month old, we settled on a salad, a main, three pizzas (!), and a sticky bun to tide us over until the food arrived. We wanted to order a few more dishes but tried to our best to be reasonable. That said, if you’re there at dinner, the pastas are consistently excellent, as are the calzones. It’s impossible to order badly!

By the time the pizzas arrived we’d already eaten the sticky bun, plus a cucumber salad with with garlic and chili and a tonkatsu-style piece of pork over kale, stracciatella cheese, avocado, and chipotle. The pizzas feature house-made mozzarella, locally-milled flour in the crust, and vegetables from the restaurant’s garden when the season permits. Our picks for the day, the Four Emperors, with arrabbiata, mozzarella, ricotta, capra con pepe, asiago, and sesame seeds; the Guanciale & Egg; and the Fennel Countdown with mozzarella, pecorino, pancetta, fennel, and lemon were uniformly excellent, with well-blistered crusts that managed to stay pleasingly chewy. We fed little bites of each to the baby as we devoured them, slice after slice disappearing from the trays and happy smiles spreading across our faces. Don’t you love when kid-friendly comes hand-in-hand with adult-approved?

A few additional details:

• The closest subway station is the Morgan Avenue stop on the L train.
• Takeout and delivery, including excellent breads and pastries from their bakery, are available from 10am-12am daily.
• The restaurant accepts walk-ins only, but does offer group dining packages for parties of 10-16 people.
• If you can’t make it to the original Roberta’s in Brooklyn, the outpost at Urbanspace Vanderbilt close to Grand Central is a great alternative.
• Blanca, the tasting menu-only restaurant with two Michelin stars behind Roberta’s makes an excellent special occasion or date night restaurant, but does require planning ahead (bookings are accepted 30 days in advance).

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Valentines Love Heart Bunting with Potato Printing

There is lots of love in the air, with Valentine’s Day nearly here, so I wanted to create a craft with simple items we had on hand in our home. Naturally, a classic potato print project came to mind. After all aren’t potato prints a right of passage? Good for all ages, this craft entertained my nearly two year old and almost five year old, as well as my mother in law. So definitely great for all ages! And you can choose how much time and concentration you have — the first bunting consisted of 5 pages of paper, and the next one had 13 pages  — both looked super cute, so you modify this craft to suit you.

The origin of this idea was from the talented Artbarblog— an artist and Babyccino friend, with an endless wealth of knowledge and a pocketful of creative tricks. Her ideas are so inspiring, and she aspires to raise creative thinkers (yes!). I fell in love with this potato print garland idea (thank you Bar!), then I modified it to fit our needs — fewer steps, simplified, quick to make, toddler approved, and very last minute friendly!

Materials :

• Paper — we used what we had on hand which were pages from a recycled restaurant guide. But newsprint, graph paper, old maps, or even newspaper could all work nicely. Think texture from type, it adds a really lovely dimension.
• Potatoes — we got ‘slightly imperfect ones’ so they cost less and were funny looking! I would suggest one potato heart per colour.
• Heart shaped cookie cutter
• Paint, brush, and tray or plate for paint
• Hole puncher and / or washi tape
• Red & white striped twine

Steps :

1. Lay out the paper in a row — doing a few pages at the same time is more efficient so you can use one stamp numerous times.
2. Mix the paint to your preferred colours — we loved orange, salmon pink, red, white, and fuchsia.
3. Cut the potatoes in half, then press the heart cookie cutter into the cut half about a ¼ inch deep. Then with a pairing knife, cut away the potato around the heart, and you have a perfect love heart! I love this trick. So simple and quick.
4. Use a brush to apply the paint to the heart stamp — it is much more even and less blotchy this way. Then stamp away.
5. Let each individual experiment with the colours, patterns, and direction of their hearts. And fill in the heart with paint from the brush if the heart isn’t totally clear.
6. After everything has dried, punch holes at the top corners or tape the twine on. We loved the finished look of the punched holes.
7. Thread thru the twine, hang up, and add a few hand drawn outlines and a pop of colour to really bring out a few of the hearts!

Yes! A homemade Valentine’s bunting for all to enjoy. Colourful, cute, hand made. It will add happiness to any home. And save it for future Valentine’s Days by simply storing it in a cardboard envelope and saving it for future Valentine’s Day — maybe even add to it each year?

Last but not least, we also wanted to share some other inspiring craft ideas using some of the same materials with potatoes and cookie cutters and bunting.

Thank you again Bar! And happy potato love heart day.

Lara x

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Helpful tips for adoptive parents from three experienced mothers

Tammy Flinos met her husband at the young age of eighteen. On their second date they decided they were going to adopt a child. After two biological children, they moved to Dubai where they began the adoption process. Here Tammy met Jodie Hampshire and Selina Smyth, two other women who were going through the adoption process at the same time. The three became close friends as they went through the emotional highs and lows together — from the death of a child to the welcoming of children, they went through the trials and tribulations that come with adoptive parenting.

Between the three women, they now have twelve children — six adopted and six biological, and after a decade of being adoptive parents, the three decided to write a book to offer support and answers to other parents going through the adoption process. They wrote down their individual experiences and personal stories, and share their learnings in a new book called Lionheart — the real life guide to adoptive parenting.

“Writing this book was an incredible experience for each of us. It was so emotional writing down all of our stories and remembering all of the challenging experiences we have had. The three of us met in Singapore to finish the writing and it was like a few days of incredible group therapy! We laughed and cried and wrote and wrote and wrote. So the end product is a book that lets you know that you are not alone — that some of the things you are experiencing that seem strange, are normal to us. It makes you laugh and cry and gives you tips on how to deal with common issues and also how to take care of yourself.”

Lionheart is helpful to any parent of adopted or fostered children, or anyone parenting a child who has experienced trauma of any kind. And 100% of the proceeds from the book sales go to Big Love Family Projects, a charity they set up to support projects in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cambodia – their children’s birth countries.

Here are five helpful tips for adoptive parents:

1. Accept your child for who they are. This is a very hard one for all parents, but fully accepting the child that we have, their likes and dislikes, their style, their talents or lack thereof, allows our children to feel free. It allows them to feel proud of who they are and gives us as parents, a sense of freedom —  freedom from expectations and disappointment. That is unconditional love and everyone will benefit from it.

2. Be aware of, and knowledgable about trauma. Your child, no matter how old they were when you adopted them, will have experienced trauma. Being separated from your biological mother at any age and under any circumstances, brings with it a whole host of trauma related issues. The older the child was when adopted, the more trauma they will have experienced in their life before you. Finding out as much as you can about trauma, how it effects brain development, behavior and emotional maturity will help both you and your child immensely.

3. Children that have spent any time in an institution (orphanage, children’s home etc) will more than likely have some sensory issues. Consulting an occupational therapist and do some research. Simple activities can be life changing and will allow your child to experience the pleasure of sensory input without the stress.

4. Allow your child to express their emotions fully. This is a huge one. Adopted children have a whole host of difficult emotions to deal with, and as small children, they have no understanding of these emotions. Sitting with them calmly, while explaining that they are safe to express themselves is an incredible tool for you as a parent. Telling the child that it is ok to feel scared, angry, confused, frustrated, hurt, whatever it may be, will allow them to move through these emotions in a healthy way and hopefully help them release these feelings. It helps them to understand that these feelings aren’t “negative” emotions, they are just emotions. Everyone has them and it is ok to feel it, experience it, then let go of it. This process may take years in adopted children, but as long as they understand that it is healthy to feel things and that it is all part of being human and processing things, then hopefully they can grow into emotionally mature adults who have learned to recognize and deal with feelings when they arise.

5. Self care. We cannot stress this enough! Any parent needs to take care of themselves, but it is never as important as when you are dealing with a child that has issues of their own. Often we get so caught up in trying to be there for our children and help them get through their own things, that we forget about ourselves. Place the oxygen mask on yourself first, then help others. This is the most sensible thing to do. You have to take good care of your own physical, mental and emotional health, so that you can be the best parent possible to your child. This is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity.

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Last Minute Valentine’s DIY: Heart Shaped Seed Paper and Origami Envelope

I don’t give a lot on Valentine’s Day, usually. But I try to create something sweet for my husband and the kids just so they know it exists. Does this even make any sense? So this year I decided to craft a last minute Valentine’s DIY: tiny seed paper hearts and easy envelopes to pack them in. These are sooooo easy to make and I think everyone is going to like the idea (especially my mother in law who is visiting).

To make these you’ll need:

Old egg cartoon
Water
Heart-shaped cookie cutter
A straight strainer (I used this pot cover I have at home)
Flower seeds
Paper for the envelopes

First thing you need to do is rip the egg cartoon to little pieces, cover with water and let soak over night.

The next day you mix both into a fine puree (excuse the pink dust in the above photo among the ingredients! I tried to experiment with some left-over natural pigment which look promising at first, but has leaked out during the drying phase. I think some usual, food color might stay on if you wish to try).

Now place the cookie cutter onto a strainer and take about a teaspoon full of mush, pour into a cookie cutter and spread evenly along the surface. Sprinkle each heart with a few seeds. Now carefully lift the cookie cutter and repeat. Repeat this as many times as you wish/as many hearts you need.

Now let them dry – I placed them on a window shelf above a radiator and they were dry by the morning. Very carefully peel them off of the strainer (see the difference in colour/no colour?).

For the envelope you only need a square-shaped paper.
First fold diagonally, so you get a triangle.
Now fold each side corner of the triangle in towards the center at one third of the dimension of the bottom edge, keeping the bottom edges aligned.
Unfold.

Fold the top and the bottom flaps half way towards the middle.
Unfold the top flap, place the heart on the top square as shown on the picture, fold the bottom part up and tuck one flap into the pocket of another.
Now fold the last left flap down and tape with a nice sticker.

Happy Valentine’s!

– Polona

PS Sweet and simple paper love bird notes

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My Funny Valentines — Cute last-minute Valentine card idea!

These are the easiest (and super last-minute friendly) Valentine cards. Very handmade, perhaps even a bit homespun, which I think adds a bit of character… quite endearing! In addition they are funny and fast to make! You can use collage materials and a bit of clever wording, and presto! We used pieces of wrapping paper from Knot & Bow (it is our very favourite paper for wrapping special birthday gifts — instant smiles guaranteed from the recipient). But you could also use magazine/newspaper clippings, or do your own drawings too!

They are easy to make. You only need glue, scissors, pens, and a bit of humour, which transformed our postcards. We used blank postcards , but obviously you can make your own too.

Personally, I love the ‘Frankly we think you are the hottest dog in town’ cards, but the ‘berry much’ message is cute too. Inventing our captions was probably one of the best parts of making these cards. Also, it became a whole fun ‘lesson’ discussing what jokes, riddles, and a play on words is with our four year old.

Add a happy face and a few personal touches, and children of all ages can make these en masse, for classmates, grandparents, and friends they know. Easy for children of all ages.

So hopefully these funny Valentine’s will inspire you to make a few quick cards for love heart day too!

Enjoy!

Lara x

ps — For a more elegant Valentine’s Day card solution, I heart these beautiful and simple tissue paper painting cards!

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An Easter family ski break, with Powder Byrne

A few months ago I wrote about how we love to go skiing with our kids and told you about the British company Powder Byrne: the company that creates wonderful, luxury ski holidays for families worldwide. In the meantime, browsing the Powder Byrne website has become a bit of a hobby of mine. All of those pretty places look so wonderful!

Sadly our little family is skipping our yearly ski trip this year… At 39 weeks pregnant, it might be a bit too risky to be up in the mountains on skis! (I must admit I did seriously consider it though, haha! I just love to go skiing with our family!) I’m extra sad that there’s no skiing for us this year because the snow conditions in Europe are so very excellent. There’s actually SO much snow that friends of ours even got snowed in for a few days!

Because of all of the snow, this year is a great time to consider an Easter family ski break. Think the current wonderful spring skiing conditions combined with longer, sunnier days. Yes to both! Skiing during Easter requires going up a bit higher in the mountains. Powder Byrne has selected a portfolio of resorts which offer great snow records and, for smaller children, nursery slopes at altitude. (It’s all very well when a resort offers very high and lovely slopes for confident skiers, but if the nursery sleeps are at the bottom of the valley are melting fast then the kids experience will be compromised.)

Swiss favourites for an Easter family ski break include the chic village of Arosa (at 1800m), Lenzerheide (at 1500m) and Flims Laax (with nursery slopes up to 1650m). Zermatt is a great option for families too, once the children are a little more confident to explore blues and red runs. The Powder Byrne Austrian Easter favourite is Zurs, in the majestic Austrian Arlberg, with nursery slopes in the village at 1800m.

Of course Powder Byrne have lots of ideas up their sleeves for families looking to make the most of the exceptional conditions this season. They are great at organising the most amazing custom family ski holidays for you! But here are some ideas to inspire you for an Easter family ski break:

The Rocksresort in Laax, Switzerland is a beautifully designed apartment hotel and located in a small resort village hub. It offers modern space for families who want more flexibility than a traditional hotel. The apartments are right on the slopes! (Which is car free and offers a great selection of cafes, bars restaurants and shops!) I love the cool, relaxed look of this hotel! If you travel 1st – 8th April 2018 and you’ll be able to access all the buzz and atmosphere of the BRITS, the British Ski & Snowboard Championships. The cream of British snowsports will be battling it out on the parks, halfpipes and jumps! My kids would LOVE this!

Two Bedroom Apartments at Rocksresort start at £1,715 per adult for a week between 1st and 8th April 2018. It includes a bakery delivery for breakfast, luxury airport transfers, flights from London and full Powder Byrne in-resort service. The hotel offers a lovely spa and swimming pool too. A dream!

The Hotel Valluga in Zurs, Austria is a great option for an Easter family ski break too. Located in the heart of this exclusive ski resort, it’s walking distance to the slopes. Offering larger family rooms and great connecting options, it also had a very popular bar and restaurant. The resort is very busy for Easter so these are some of the best remaining rooms available. I love the typical, Austrian style of this hotel, and the amazing sauna complex. So cosy!

Have you ever been skiing in spring? I haven’t, but it’s on my wish list now. These places look amazing!!

xxx Esther

In partnership with Powder Byrne

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A Pizza Playdate

With new friends in my daughter’s new school, it seems that there are lots of new playdate requests, so playdates are a big part of our social calendar. I have recently discovered the perfect activity (especially on cold wintery days indoors): a pizza-making playdate. It ticks all the boxes: happy, healthy, and fun. Plus, you feed the children in addition to keeping them entertained. Bonus!

Provide a station of various food options. Choose toppings that might slightly push them out of their normal comfort zones (and create more interesting pizzas). For instance, pre-cooked broccoli from the previous night’s dinner was surprisingly the most popular item.

Ingredients :

-Pizza Dough — this is a great recipe from Jamie Oliver for dough, or buy fresh or frozen balls of dough, or ask a local pizza restaurant to buy some dough!
-Flour (small handful)
-Pizza sauce — easy to buy or make
-Cheese — we used grated and fresh mozzarella balls
-Your choice of toppings!

Materials Needed : 

-Spoon
-Rolling Pins
-Tea Towels or Aprons
-Baking Sheet

Simply roll the dough on a clean and floured surface, and even try to do some dough ‘throwing’ in the air.

1. Then have them roll the dough as thin as you prefer but strong enough to handle an enthusiastic helping of toppings! Smiley olive faces recommended.
2. Next, cook the pizza until the dough is golden and brown, about 10-15 mins at 180 degrees celsius.
3. Slice up and serve up… simple.  They loved trading slices and sharing ‘their’ pizza with ‘their’ friend which was very cute. Such pride in their pizzas, and such a yummy reward.

So the only question I am left wondering is why it took so long for me to figure out this pizza play date trick? Successful, fun, and delicious! Finally, I hope you try a pizza play date — children of all ages are sure to love it.

Lara

x

ps Another fun after school activity that we love (with another kind of dough).

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